Piano | b. 1938

Steve Kuhn was born in New York City in 1938 and raised in Newton, Massachusetts, where he began classical piano lessons at five under Madame Chaloff and was accompanying her son, baritone saxophonist Serge Chaloff, on professional gigs at fourteen. He studied at Harvard while holding down a six-nights-a-week piano job in Harvard Square, then continued at the Lenox School of Music alongside Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry, studying under Gunther Schuller, George Russell, John Lewis and Bill Evans. Kenny Dorham hired him at Lenox; he left Dorham's band in 1960 when John Coltrane formed a new quartet and Kuhn asked for an audition directly, playing with Coltrane for eight weeks at the Jazz Gallery until McCoy Tyner succeeded him. He worked with Stan Getz from 1961 to 1963, with a rhythm section that at one point included Scott LaFaro and Roy Haynes, then spent a year with Art Farmer before forming his own trio with Steve Swallow and Pete La Roca. The 1966 Impulse! album "The October Suite," a collaboration with vibraphonist Gary McFarland built around Third Stream ideas, influenced Manfred Eicher directly in developing ECM's aesthetic direction. After three years in Stockholm (1967-1970), Kuhn returned to New York and began recording for ECM: "Trance" (1974) and "Ecstasy" (1974), both recorded at Tonstudio Bauer with Swallow, Steve Slagle and Bob Moses, became his most celebrated recordings. A subsequent quartet with singer Sheila Jordan produced "Playground" and "Last Year's Waltz" on ECM. Kuhn, now 88, remains active.